PHNOM PENH (AFP) — She has two years to go until graduation, but already Cambodian student Chhum Savorn is filled with a sense of dread.
The 21-year-old decided to major in finance, hoping she would acquire skills to help develop her country, which is one of the poorest in the world.
Instead, she thinks her education is nearly worthless -- classes are mostly packed with indifferent, cheating students and led by under-qualified professors.
"The low quality of my studies means that I can't help the country, and I'll even have a hard time getting a job that pays enough to help my family," she says.
Our primary concern, of course—oft-stated on this blog—is that the girls of the Harpswell Dorm may become the best-educated lasses in all the land (in addition to being the most beautiful) but in a country conspiring to keep them from the leadership roles for which they are so adequately being trained, what good will it do?
It reminds me of last week on the train to where I teach (I labor under the delusion that my classroom is packed with caring, intelligent students), I sat next to a seventh-grade girl and her father, who was simply riding along, making sure she got off at the right stop for her school. She was adorable, and when she left, I commented to her father what a sweetheart she seemed, and with such a large backpack!
Oh yes, he said. She's always working. She was offered the chance to be in a gifted program this year, but we wouldn't let her enroll. It's just not a gifted world.
I had just returned from the RNC, where I had watched the brightest minds of my generation tear-gassed and illegally detained in massive numbers, and my first thought was, good.
Posts
